It’s a stereotype that has been around for years. As long as online dating has been a thing, it has been ridiculed by naysayers. “That’s not going to lead to true, lasting love,” they claim.
It turns out, relationships that are brought about through the internet are no more prone to breakups and dissatisfaction than among people who meet in person.
A study involving close to 20,000 people was carried out between 2005 and 2012. The results show that couples have very comparable levels of happiness no matter how they met. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To be fair, the survey should not make you too optimistic about the world of online love either. Though couples did not necessarily fare any worse, they didn’t necessarily do much better, which has been reflected in the similar number of divorces that occurred between the two groups.
In other ways, the study further shook up commonly held views. You may think that younger generations are more apt to meet online because of their greater familiarity with technology, but older couples are actually more likely to use the internet as a tool to meet partners.
As time goes on, perhaps uneasiness toward dating online will fade away.